Michelle's Musings

19 May 2020

Review: The Paris Hours

The Paris Hours by Alex George
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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11 May 2020

Review: I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf

I Will Judge You by Your Bookshelf by Grant Snider
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a cute, well-illustrated, quick read kind of a book. If you love books, you should at least look at this. You see all types of readers, writers, and bookshelves. I found myself depicted in quite a few of the illustrations and situations. This would probably be a great book for someone that loves books!!!!

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Review: The Grace Kelly Dress

The Grace Kelly Dress by Brenda Janowitz
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Paducah, if you wanna you can rhyme it with bazooka

There is a wall in the dining room that is huge, behind the cabinets and SCREAMS for a mural. John told me one of our first nights here that he could see me doing artwork up there, so yeah, the challenge was made, I had to think of ideas.

I wanted something unique, something that people would say "WOW" and something no one expected.

I thought about old-timey signs, a whole bunch of them painted all over the wall to look like the wall was covered in signs. Good idea, but not what I needed. Then I thought about a diner scene, but I decided that needed to be in colors like pink, and neon and I wanted more earthy tones. I decided that I love the Paducah song, I have always loved the Paducah song, and I needed Carmen Miranda in my everyday life. I went with the vintage Paducah Postcard look, modernizing it into the things that we loved and not something everyone else thinks about. I started with the basic vintage look and in the letters added things WE LOVE about Paducah. Of course the first thing added was Carmen (if you haven't seen The Gang's All Here, please do). Next was the Atomic City. I really like how the city was toted as The Atomic City when all this space-age stuff was new and hip. The "U" is full of things we love (mostly to eat), and I left room for a couple more things. I had to include Wacinton, The American Queen, Coke Plant, and The Columbia too! The "H" is full of things we like in the surrounding area and a little bit of Alben Barkley, who really needed a letter all to himself, but I just couldn't find a way to get it done. Lastly, I added the Quilt City because we are the capital of all the quilts these days.

I am absolutely in love with the way it turned out. Next up, is another mural and a window so stay tuned.

07 May 2020

Another easy recipe

I have another easy recipe for you. This is the easiest chicken and dumplins you will ever make.

Now my husband likeds to add cheddar cheese to this and broil the last couple of minutes, but you can do what you like. I like to add poultry seasoning to the flour mix just to give it some extra flavor. Be creative and see what you can do with this.

Review: Camino Winds

Camino Winds by John Grisham
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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05 May 2020

The mountains are calling and I must go

Anyone that knows me knows that I would rather be near the mountains than anything in this world. That my soul longs to live amongest the snow capped peaks of a mountain range. I have come to realize that I will visit them many times, but I will never be able to live there so when we moved and got this extra space I decided I had to make a room that would be called "The mountains are calling and I must go" from my favorite John Muir quote. I thought about doing all 4 walls of an 8x8 room but decided I had better go with just two walls with the possibility of adding on in the future. The focal point would be Denali and it would also serve as the headboard in this guest room. You would make your way around the room to the left of Denali would be the National Park area. To the right of Denali you would travel through Fairbanks and then down to the Stephen's Passage, to Glacier Bay National Park & Reserve, my absolute favorite place on the whole planet. I worked on this room after work for about 2 weeks and I think, even though it is the smallest room in the house, it is my favorite. I go in there every single day, even for just a few minutes. I wish it was large enough to add a chair so I could read in there, but for now, I just sit on the bed and play with the cats. The cats think this is their napping room and the bed is covered in cat hair (black comforter, white cat).

The little places near Wasilla, I saw a flag there in a yard of a shopping plaza, no shopping plaza will be on the wall, but I put in the flag. There is a surprise in the sky, a close up will be provided below.

Glacier Bay National Park and a tidewater glacier. I did Michelle's version of the Muir, which is shrinking terribly.

Denali over the bed with the Northern Lights

My version of the Ruth Glacier Denali National Park

the flag in Wasilla

A surprise over Glacier Bay

Stephens Passage has a surprise on the tree

A surprise over Wasilla

My version of the Grand Pacific Glacier

Review: A Death Before the Wedding

A Death Before the Wedding by Harper Lin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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01 May 2020

Book tracker bookshelf

Happy Friday!!!

I found something on the internet that might make you happy. I have drawn one of my own before, but there is no way it can top the beauty of this one. I have looked and looked for this girl's website because she had some great stuff, but I cannot find it. I did find her Facebook (Her page is Three.Six.Five Projects) page and it hasn't been updated for some time so she may no longer be making cool things, but I wanted to show her some virtual love because this tracker is fabulous!!!

I would love to hear if you have found any book tracker charts online that you love, please share.

29 April 2020

May book drop

Good afternoon,

For those of you that follow my reading club on Facebook, I wanted to let you know that I am dropping the May book so you can get it in your hands if you would like to read along. I started this book a few days ago and I wish I could devote all my time to it because the plot is very exciting. This one has a unique plot, a dystopian vibe, and a big brother/social media plot that at times turned my stomach.

Mays book is:

Followers: A Novel
by Megan Angelo

What if the internet is broken? What if the government runs a town and we "follow" it? There is a timeline that takes place in 2015 and another is 2051. You will see how the characters from each timeline will intersect piece by piece (I really liked how things were revealed). This is a page-turner for me.

27 April 2020

24 April 2020

A book journal and other musings

Good Morning from Kentucky!

We are working hard on staying healthy at home but with all the cheesecake and cookie-baking, along with all the pots of macaroni and cheese, we are running out of butter. It is not a desperate situation yet, but we are getting close. What is getting to a desperate level is the lack of cleaning wipes. I don't use them to clean the house, but I do use them to clean my Cricut mats, have you ever tried that? They are great for cleaning off little bits of paper and reviving the stickiness of the mat. If you have a better method, I am all ears because I cannot buy these wipes anywhere.

I wanted to talk to you today about reading not so much about cleaning wipes. I have been keeping a reading journal since 1996. This was necessary for me because I read so many books I could not remember what each book was about, not even to mention the title or author's name. At first, I just recorded the name of the book and the author's name along with the dates read. I started adding a smiley face if I enjoyed the read and did not record any abandoned books. This was the source of my recordings for about 15 years. As a matter of fact, most of it was recorded in a single journal book that I started in 1996. I have done a post with it before, but it is worth a revisit, here is that very first reading journal. (My handwriting is atrocious)

Once I got an e-reader my reading doubled from what it had been and I needed a better system. I started a graph for my book part and an excel spreadsheet too.

The spreadsheet calculates how many books I have read for that year, how many of all time, how many of that year were paper, ebook or audio, and how many of all time were paper, ebook, and audio. I love the stats part. This system does not give me a clue as to what the book was about, it is purely for that stats thing I love.

My paper journal evolved around that time as well, I started keeping more details and looking online for a good system. I discovered Modern Mrs. Darcy's blog. She had a free journal that she gave you, I took it and redid it for the things that I wished to retain. I made this one in pages and printed it on cardstock, then bound it in a book that I wished to retain forever. I used it for a few years but decided I really wanted to have it in a journal type book with a leather cover. I took apart a leather bound book amd inserted my own pages, but it still wasn't what I wanted.

I looked into having a moleskin book printed with my journal blocks, but that was too expensive. I mentioned it to my friend Amy that I needed a system and she said: "make a stamp". PERFECT!! That is just what I did. I got the stamp on Amazon for $15....worth every dime. Here is what that looks like, both the stamp and how it looks stamped on my page.